By Neil J. Rubenking If you check your Windows XP Registry, you'll find something mildly alarming—an empty key named HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Mr. Enigma. Is it a sign of spyware? Is it the sinister alter ego of Dr. Watson? A Google search yielded no answers, just a handful of pages asking the same question. This key is present even in a pristine, new installation of Windows XP, so we decided to ask our contacts at Microsoft for help in identifying it.

After some internal research, Microsoft found the source. Despite the enigmatic name, the entry is harmless. It apparently relates to "a workaround for supporting region encoding for DVD RPC Phase 1 drives on Windows 95." There's clearly no point in retaining this key in Windows XP, and in fact, Microsoft plans to remove it, possibly in an upcoming Service Pack. As for why the name Mr. Enigma, the company declined to share the joke, saying it was just "too stupid." Goodbye, Mr. Enigma.

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Okay, but does that explain the only entry in my security log dating to April 23, 2005 at 3:39 a. m.?

Does that explain the other two keys, one going to a software company and I did not put that in my computer?

Hisser, Lisser, Carlo Hesser from One LIfe To Live, Brazil and the mountains and hills of Afghanistan. Oh to have the tell tale book what I might give.

Fly me away Scotty to a new homeland, got to make daddy understand. Ya don't blow away a person x 3K so consider us hostages in the good ol USA. That's the way some want it and some would kick our arse right away. Been laden with trouble in the city to the sand.

WTFuguk am I saying?

Da Kinks are a kick arse band I suppose.

Dunk that donut, razor blade man, shakin' and stirred in front of video land. Big tall woman like a older now younger cousin of mine, speaks another language in another zone time.